Hello all,
I am having a dilemma, mostly in my heart.
As you may already know my boyfriend has a 12 year old son, whom his mom is unrightfully keeping from his dad. We're supposed to have him every other week, but we've only had him a handful of times, for less than 6 hours at a time for 7 months now.
I am friends with some of his moms close relatives and I was talking to one of them today. I learned that W, my boyfriend's son, is failing in yet another grade, is hanging around a new kid he's been getting in trouble with and now has a girlfriend that is 2 years older than him. Now age isn't a big deal to me when it comes to relationships- unless your juvenile!
After giving it some thought, I also concluded that it would be all too easy for these kids to be alone. His mom lives next to the soccer field of his school, and he walks home everyday and is alone until his mom and her husband get home from work. This set off alarms for anyone else?
Now I know some people think I should do nothing at all because I'm not his parent, some people even think I am not his step mom cause his dad and I aren't married. Well I don't want to hear that, I want some advice, not to be judged. I have been a part of this child's life for more than 5 years and I love him with all my heart and would do anything for him as if he were my own son.
I know I may not be able to do much, but I was looking for some more thoughts on the situation.
His dad has done (in my opinion) little to fix things. He doesn't like to talk about it at all, gets a migraine when he does, and hates confrontation more than anyone I know. He doesn't want to fight with his irrational (extremely) ex wife and he feels that he wouldn't have much luck in court, plus he doesn't want to take him away from his mom. (and again-confrontation)
I tell him he could fight for more custody rights (he's got 49% she's got 51%) without taking him away from his mom. He just gets real quiet.
This isn't the first time she took W away from his dad simply cause she wants too, last time she did she moved 5 hours away.
Before she took W away from us (this time), we had a great relationship. He respected me, listened to me and we would spend hours talking about everything under the sun. He followed our rules, hardly got into trouble, was very respectful, and did good at thinking things through (usually, he's still a kid (: ).
Now I feel he is starting down a bad path, and I feel helpless in guiding him since I don't get to talk to him more than every month & a half to 2 months.
When she took him away, she told him he didn't have to follow our rules, including our cell phone rules we gave him. Last time his dad tried calling him he ignored his calls cause he was playing on the xbox.
From my observations and discussions with his mom over all these years, I feel she sees no problem with any of this. I heard that she is saying that its OK he dates this girl because he was born in September and didn't miss the deadline to get into school. So that makes them only a little over a year a part in age. He's 12 in 6th grade, she's 14 in 8th.
Doesn't she know girls are more mature than boys at this age anyway!
Honestly, I personally feel that she wouldn't have much of a problem if he dropped out of school before he reached high school, or got a girl pregnant before he was an adult. Hey maybe she'd be proud cause than he'd be just like her. Yes I have a lot of animosity for this woman, but believe me, its not clouding my opinions of her. She's proved these things time & time again.
*sigh* help.

First your animosity absolutely clouds your opinion. You say you don't want us to judge you yet your whole post is pure, uninformed judgement. You have zero legal standing with the children. If dad is too lazy and irresponsible to be a parent, mom is right to carry on and take the greater responsibility. I say uninformed because it is loaded with conjecture.

We don't know why they are divorced... Was there an affair with you? If so, your credibility and propriety acting like you care about the kids is in the negative digits.

The problem is that neither you or the dad know your roles with the kids. Dad won't step up and you won't back off. He doesn't need more rights. He needs to engage in coparenting his kids with the rights he already has. He should be meeting with teachers, going to doctor appointments, and paying for after school care (the solution to that free time) and calling the girl's parents to intervene in her involvement with his son. If he is denied parenting time, he should take his parenting agreement to the police for enforcement. He should be dealing directly as a parent and getting involved if his son is on the wrong track. If the mom won't send him grades or whatever, he shoukd go directly to the school .

You have it all wrong. This is not about a bad mom but a lazy father. He needs to man up and insist on the parenting rights he already has instead if having his girlfriend snoop on his ex wife. It is good you care but you need to take a back seat unless you suspect abuse or neglect. If that's happening and your boyfriend won't man up, report it to the authorities.

dontknownuthin- the name fits! my animosity comes from how she has treated each one of us individually. I have tried and tried to be friendly with her, I always made sure that either I or W's dad made sure she was in the loop when it came to what was happening in our household. W's father is not lazy or irresponsible, his issues stem from his abusive childhood. As well as every time he has ever, ever tried to voice his opinion on something to do with their son, she has shot him down. She talked bad about him for months in front of their son because he wanted her to stop watching r rated movies and playing m rated games with their son. She's irrational. there absolutely was not an affair. I must say I'm offended. I did not come into the picture till a couple years after the divorced. They divorced partly because they married way too young and partly because she was cheating on him. he does everything he can with his son, he practices soccer & football with him, he pays for school & stuff and makes sure he has nice clothes and shoes. He even tries to help out at with food at her house when he hears his son is not eating enough good food. W's mom, with no legal right, has refused to let W come home. She just married and now is doing this. W's father is a good father, period. He's never left W at his moms house to go running around town to drink and party. That's not something mom can say. He's never left him with friends for hours so that he can go hang out with a current flame, she can't say that. and he's never broken a promise to his son- she can't say that. He's gone to the d.a. And filed all the paperwork, they have dropped the ball and now he's calling to get answers. Do you feel that after caring for a child for 5+ years, watching that child succeed, fail & try again. Watching him grow and become a smart young man. Helping him learn and try new things. Do you feel you could simply take the back seat and not even watch, but only hear how that child's grades are dropping, he's getting in trouble more and he's got a girlfriend who he more than likely gets to be alone with. Hear how he no longer has to follow rules that you and your man (his dad) set up for his safety. Like I said before, the name fits.

So you're jumping all over dontknownuthin because she didn't tell you what you want to hear? Is that how this is going to work? If you don't hear an opinion that you agree with, you will be upset and jump that person. Ok, my turn then....

The father IS lazy and won't step up. If there is a court order that says you are supposed to have that kid more than 6 hours now and then, then he needs to be going back to the court and telling them that she is not following the court order. THAT is how he should be handling this...but then...well, that would be confrontational and you said it yourself, he is too worried about making waves. So essentially, the father doesn't want to cause confrontation and the son is taking a back seat because of this. IF the son was as important to the father as you seem to believe, then the excuses would be out the window and the father would be taking this back to court to get the orders enforced. If he can't be bothered to do that much, then the kid must not matter.

Until the father steps up and takes action, there is nothing that can be done. That is the bottom line.

EDIT- I found this- You were pretty much told the same thing 2 weeks ago.
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/childr...ml#post3610444

toddcandi - you have had issues with the mother for a long, long time. I knew I recognized your user name. At one point, you posted concerns about the mother, acting as if you were the father. Maybe you were sick of people telling you to back off because as the girlfriend you have no rights when it comes to the child, so you pretended to be the father to see what other advice you would be given? Who knows. May I suggest you allow the father to take control of what is going on with his son, and turn your focus off the mother and on to yourself. Your obsession with the mother can not be good for your relationship.
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/childr...ge-712642.html

What dad went through as a child, he needs to deal with in therapy and not let it impact his parenting. You are the Dad's girlfriend and it simply is not your place to even be involved in the parenting arrangements . You should not have a relationship with the mom except to say "hello" if you run into her. You talk about your shared household... So, Not married, you live with the father of adolescents. If you are worried about promiscuous behavior by the kids, how about not making it so obvious that you and Dad are all about having premarital sex? I'm divorced too and would never have let a man sleep in my home with my kids there until we were married. If you want conjugAl relations, stay over when the kids aren't there. When they are, go home for a good chunk of the time... A different home.

Dad has to step up. You need to step back. Dad needs to engage and you need to disengage. Mom will not be inclined to negotiate until you get out of the discussion. And bashing her is the worst thing to do. If she won't be reasonable he must go to court to enforce his rights. If his issues are her morals, living with you kind if takes the wibd out if his sails. The problem of not liking her was already solved with the divorce.

I'm not saying mom is doing everything right. I'm saying that it's not going to work for dad to hide under a blanket and the live- in girlfriend to try to fight his battles. If you don't like the status quo and boyfriend won't fix it, you may need to leave him.

Dontknownuthin.
What if dad never intends on marrying again? What if after his wife cheated & left, that piece of paper means nothing to him. We live as a married couple. As much a non married couple can. And as far as the sex thing goes- there is none. He is not interested what so ever, thank you modern drugs.
A lot of his problems stems from having chronic migraines. When he was incapable of taking care of things, I stepped in to make sure they were handled. For a long time W's mom appreciated, at least that's what she'd say to my face. I don't tell her how to raise her son, I tell my man exactly how I feel, listen to his thoughts and support him when he deals with her.
Before I came into the picture, he was already having issues with her. When he confronted her about their son not wanting to be around her, her different boyfriends, and her drinking beer all the time. Her basic response I guess, was too bad it's my turn to have him. Then right before I started hanging out with W's dad, W wanted to stay with mom more (I think mom did more things that seemed fun, at the time she had a boyfriend who spent a lot of money on W). Instead of saying too bad it's dad's turn, she let W stay with here for all but 2 or 3 days of dad's weeks.

And yes, I wanted answers from a different point of view. Except for this particular question, I am sharing peoples answers with my man. I felt that maybe an outside point of view would offer new thoughts. But I always get "your the girlfriend and have no right" which doesn't help W's dad much. And I realize that not being W's mom means I don't have rights, but it by no means makes it against some law of nature rule for me to love the child and want what's best for him.

I totally agree with all of you that his dad needs to do more. And confrontational issues and childhood trauma should not hold him back. Unfortunately the migraines are enough to stop him dead in his tracks for days.
She's a hard person to deal with, she doesn't listen to reason and doesn't seem to think she can do anything wrong. Example: when they divorced she couldn't make payments on a vehicle she bought shortly before the divorce. So she let it go, which hurt her credit & his. Then she just jumped all over him saying he could have taken it and made payments. He didn't have the money for that. Then when he lost the house to a $1200/mo mortgage, the house that she wanted and he didn't, then wanted nothing to do with after the divorce, she got pissed at him for losing that. When he said she could have kept it and made the payments she got huffy and stormed off. That's not exact but you get the idea.
We also have reason to believe that she talked to W in a way that made him hate me at the beginning. I won't go into all the reasons, but she manipulated him to hate me, made things hard on W, his dad & I. And then chewed his dad out cause W didn't like me.

It's always drama with her. W knows it just as well as we do.
I don't mean to lash out, but a more open minded 'maybe' answer would be nice. I know I'm not his mom, I know the court wouldn't recognize me as a legal guardian, however I do care and if IF I can do something, that's what I want to know.

I understand that you care about him. Unfortunately, W is caught in the middle and you have limited ability to help. Migraines or no migraines, Dad is the one who has to be responsible. As much as you care about both of them, you should not enable Dad to push things off on you. You don't say it and you may not realize it is happening, but he does appear to be encouraging you to fight his fight.

Give him all the support you can, but do not allow him to make you the responsible one. Perhaps discuss Family counseling that brings both parents into a place where they can discuss what is best for W with a neutral party to mediate.

It sounds like both of them have their issues and as much as you might want to fix them, you can't as long as they don't want to work together. I am not saying that Dad hasn't tried. I am not saying that he isn't starting to try harder. I do think there is room for improvement on both of their parts.

I know it isn't easy. But you gain respect by being consistent, polite and not demanding respect. Encourage polite behavior by behaving in a polite manner to him. If you want him to listen, listen to him. Let Dad explain the reason for the rules. Encourage 'Family' time where you can all interact together on a less formal/parental level.

I get all your explanations and Dad's issues. This is the truth though. You have no legal standing, first of all. You can't solve the problem because it's a legal problem. Dad isn't interested in solving the problem. He might say he is but I have never heard so many lame excuses for a man to be lazy and non-committal.

This is his decision... Make his parenting time optional, avoid confrontation because it is uncomfortable, model a live-in relationship with his girlfriend to a child who is already acting promiscuous, avoid marriage to you because marrying you "wouldn't mean anything"; blame migraines, a bad childhood and the mother for his own decision to give up on his kid... Is there more? This guy is a deadbeat. It's great you want to pick up the slack but you cannot be a dad for him- he has to do it himself. He decided not to. And the real reason, when you cut through his monumental pile of crap, is that he is selfish, self-absorbed, inconsiderate, immature and lazy.

Sweetie, you are in a no win situation. Get out of it! These people still have issues with each other... and you are not helping the situation. You are just wasting your time. YOU are never going to change the mother's behavior nor are YOU going to change the dad's behavior. Bottom line: Either you accept the situation or you get out of it! Complaining to the world, asking for answers when there are no answers, hating the ex-wife, etc. does nothing but make you miserable. At least you aren't married and you can simply walk away! Life is way too short for this kind of stuff!